Agenda item

(To receive a report from Debbie Barnes, Executive Director for Children's Services which invites the Committee to consider the proposed partnership agreement between the Department of Education and Lincolnshire County Council Children's Services as part of the Government's Partner in Practice Programme.  The proposals are intended to improve practice in Lincolnshire and other Children's Services by transforming the quality of children's social care services and early help arrangements)

Consideration was given to a report which invited the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee to consider the proposed partnership agreement between the Department of Education (DfE) and Lincolnshire County Council's Children's Services as part of the Government's Partner in Practice Programme.  The proposals were intended to improve practice in Lincolnshire and other Children's Services by transforming the quality of children's social care services and early help arrangements.  Members were advised that the DfE had approached high performing local authorities to work with them about what an alternative child protection system would look like.  The authority had submitted its Partners in Practice proposal, but at the time of the meeting it had not yet been accepted.

Members were informed that the proposals to transform Children's Social Care were structured around three different work streams with 10 aspirations of what the authority wishes to achieve over the next four years.  It was believed that the three work streams would enable Lincolnshire to innovate which would improve the authority's practices and be more child focused, building on its approach for relationship based practice.  The three work streams were aligned to the DfE's reform programme, and were as follows:

·         Practice and systems

·         Governance and accountability

·         People and leadership

The Committee was provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         It was commented that the report was excellent and was welcomed.

·         There was agreement that staff relationship with the child was an important issue, and that there should be one person for the child to go to.

·         Members were pleased to see more use of 'Signs of Safety, and saw this as a positive move away from a tick box way of working.

·         It was commented that the successes of families working together in Lincolnshire showed the strength of the model.

·         There would be much more voice of the child in this process.

·         It was queried why, if Lincolnshire was already an outstanding local authority in child protection was it being asked to look at alternative delivery models.

·         It was confirmed that it was common for children to get attached to their social worker, and a lot of children in the care system had existing attachment issues.  Anything that would reduce the number of people a child had to deal with would be positive.

·         Concerns were raised with regard to Aspiration 6 as it was thought there was a need to know the exact ways that young people would be diverted away from criminal behaviour.

·         In terms of the governance work stream, the authority would be looking to explore collaborative working with joint ownership.

·         The Youth Offending Service would be moving into Children's Services, and then officers would be able to start working through how services would be further developed and integrated.

·         Officers commented that they were pleased with the comments about innovation, and management thought that this approach made sense.  It was highlighted that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to change the way that children's social care was provided.

RESOLVED

            That the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee supports the 10 aspirations as set out in the proposed partnership agreement between the Department of Education and Lincolnshire County Council's Children's Services as one of the Government's Partners in Practice.